DISCLAIMER:
Any posted Notice of Disciplinary Charges, Conviction Transmittal or other initiating document,
contains only allegations of professional misconduct. The attorney is presumed to be
innocent of any misconduct warranting discipline until the charges have been proven.

California Bar Journal Discipline Summaries

Summaries from the California Bar Journal are based on discipline orders but are not the official records. Not all discipline actions have associated CBJ summaries. Copies of official attorney discipline records are available upon request.

December 20, 2013

DOROTHY DAVIS GUILLORY [#114891], 65, of Oakland, was suspended for three years, stayed, placed on four years’ probation with an actual three-year suspension and until she makes restitution and provides proof of her rehabilitation. She was also ordered to comply with rule 9.20 of the California Rules of Court and make restitution. The order took effect Dec. 20, 2013.

Guillory initially entered into a stipulation with the State Bar in 2012 but the California Supreme Court returned the matter to the bar for further consideration as to the level of discipline.

In concluding that Guillory’s discipline should be increased, State Bar Court Judge Lucy Armendariz quoted a 1935 appellate decision, noting that even in discipline cases where an attorney pleads no contest to the charged or stipulated misconduct, the State Bar Court “cannot surrender its duty to see that the [decision it files] is a just one, nor is the court to act as a mere puppet in the matter.”

Guillory was found culpable of failing to obey a court order or report sanctions to the State Bar in connection with an estate planning case she first became involved in in 2008. That year, Guillory represented and drafted estate planning documents for an elderly retired man. Two of the man’s daughters were named beneficiaries of his trust and the man’s sister was named successor trustee and conservator of his person and his estate in the event of his incapacitation.

After the man suffered a stroke, his sister and one of the daughters, with Guillory’s representation, unsuccessfully attempted to be appointed conservators. The Alameda County Public Guardian was instead assigned to fill that role. Although there was a direct conflict given that the subject of the conservatorship was her former client, Guillory continued to represent the sister and daughter throughout their proceedings. The man also strongly objected to them becoming his conservators.

After the man’s stroke, his sister also became successor trustee and paid Guillory $60,000 in advanced fees from the trust to “defend” the trust, which one of the daughters had questioned. By the end of January 2009, Guillory had withdrawn $43,568.34 of the $60,000. Thereafter, she withdrew the remaining $16,431.66 and used it for her own purposes. In July 2009, the man filed a petition to compel his sister to provide him with an accounting of the trust’s assets, compel Guillory to return the advanced fees and revoke the trust.

In December 2009, the court filed an order disqualifying Guillory because she did not get the man’s written consent before she accepted employment from his sister and daughter. The court also ordered that she pay back the $60,000 in fees. As of the date of Armendariz’s recommendation, Guillory had not paid the money back. In an order filed on May 14, 2010, the superior court ordered Guillory to pay, as sanctions for the contempt, $1,000 to the superior court, $900 to the public defender and $800 to the county counsel of Alameda County. As of her disciplinary trial, Guillory had only paid a portion of the sanctions.

Guillory was ordered to pay $60,000 in restitution, interest on court sanctions, $900 in sanctions to the Alameda County Public Defender and $40 to the Alameda County Public Guardian.

In mitigation, Guillory had no prior record of discipline in more than 23 years of practicing law.